Thank you, chezlaw, for taking the time to track down the appropriate references. I will mull them over.

Interesting. Thank you.

That's what it'll boil down to eventually. Free speech is under assault. Where? Then you either cite racists getting chided for saying racist things or you cite college students shutting down events. Then it gets pointed out that calling a racist a racist isn't abridging anyone's free speech, so we're left with Oberlin college students that no one cares about.

I find this post quite "distressing." Stop your hate speech!

Of course the president of the United States threatened owners who then used their ownership to pressure employees to curtail their non detrimental speech and even blackball players but since that's in line with capitalism that's OK.

If it weren't for capitalism, I doubt that there would be football players making a million dollars a year.

You don't prevent tyranny by giving the government the power to punish people for speaking. And the current assault on free speech in the United States are things like ag-gag laws where you are prohibited from criticizing industries like the meat industry. Don't give the government powers and then expect them to use it only the way you like it.

The owners and the players are both beneficiaries of capitalism, in my opinion.

+1

Dunno why ya'll are wasting your time arguing with a clown giving a performance in character. You are sincere, he is not. You're wasting your time. A hearty "**** off" is all he merits.

I'm not so much worried about the benificiaries of capitalism as much as the power dynamics as it pertains to free speech.

At its harshest absolute power lies with the owner who can fire or sanction his employees at will.

I was listening to Ben Shapiro a few weeks ago and he was complaining about Conservatives being fired for tweeting grotesque things. Eventually he came to the conclusion that people shouldn't be fired unless there is a direct cause to, which is funny because that's what just cause legislation says. That legislation is pushed for the left because right wing owners will fire employees who complain about working conditions or unionizing and employers want to quash that speech and send a message that that kind of speech against owners will not be tolerated.

Of course Shapiro only really cares about it when Conservatives are fired, but it think it'd be worthwhile to have that opening of free speech without being fired. It might mean some uncomfortable situations but it'd be better for free speech

If the consensus in this forum is that this forum would be better served by my no longer posting in it, I shall not participate in this forum.

I disagree. Tyrannies can gain power from people feeling emboldened to support publicly expressed views that aim to subjugate one group of people in favour of others.

Making the public broadcast of such views illegal sets a (very low) standard that people understand is the minimum needed for a society where people treat each other with at least a modicum of respect rather than volleys of abuse.

It's not about preventing tyranny.

Sure tyrannies have anti-free speech laws but that's in no way implies that laws against hate speech make descent into tyranny more likely. The right to free speech being enshrined in the constitution wont save the usa from diddly-squat.

Isn't it at least in part because of laws protecting free speech that people can speak out publicly against Mr. Trump?

Please ignore the bad troll. Disruption is his only aim.

Tranlsation: "I can't/won't answer his question, so I'll call him names."

I can speak out against trump, the uk government etc etc.

I dont have a constitutionaly protected right to do so. I just live in a functioning democracy (of sorts), and if that functioning democracy fails then words on an old bit of paper aren't going to save me. The argument would have to be that laws against hate speech make this functioning democracy more likely to fail and that just doesn't seem remotely true - the reverse is more plausible and that's still a stretch.

So the UK barely uses its laws to suppress speech. A Nazi here or there and also it uses them against some people who quote rap lyrics. The only interesting use in recent times is when your government forced The Guardian to destroy any evidence it had related to Snowden and the NSA.

It often saves us from having our speech taken away. Like WaPo was scared enough as it was to print The Pentagon papers. The government tried to shut them down and the courts prevented that. Even with our free speech zealotry we still get things like ag-gag laws. I'd wager you have lots of restrictions in the UK other than hate speech.

I don't mind myself, but that's just me. You'd get voted off the island by a strong majority if it were polled.

Thanks, microbet. I will submit to the will of the people. I have other fish I can fry.

If I'm creating more heat than light, I shouldn't be posting here.

You can also try posting better. Crazy, I know.

Hatred toward political policies should be okay, but conservatives are not a group of people, but rather an ideology with followers.
For example, hatred toward the mentally disabled is not okay- hatred toward the mentally disabled being given complete power to govern over all others should be okay.

I'm afraid at this point my posts probably aren't going to get any better. Plus, I've never been very good at name-calling and impugning the motives/character of posters that I disagree with, so quite frankly I don't really fit in around here.